Presented at the WCPEC-8, 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 26-30 September 2022, Milan,

Italy

STATUS AND PERSPECTIVE OF INDUSTRIAL TOPCON SOLAR CELL DEVELOPMENT AT

FRAUNHOFER ISE

Sebastian Mack, Bishal Kafle, Christopher Tessmann, Katrin Krieg, Sattar Bashardoust, Elmar Lohmüller, Udo Belledin,
Pierre Saint-Cast, Hannes Höffler, Daniel Ourinson, Tobias Fellmeth, Bernd Steinhauser, Sven Kluska, Andreas Wolf
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE
Heidenhofstrasse 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Tel.: +49 761 4588-5048, email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT: This work reports on the status of industrial TOPCon solar cell development at Fraunhofer ISE. The
baseline process makes use of Cz-Si:P wafers of M2 size, a TOPCon stack consisting of a thermal silicon oxide layer
in combination with an 80 nm thin in-situ phosphorous-doped low-pressure chemical vapor deposited polysilicon layer
as well as screen printed metal contacts. A comparison between different technologies for deposition of aluminum
oxide (AlOx) layers reveals advantages for atomic layer deposition, which considerably reduces minority carrier surface
recombination, and as a result leads to an overall increase in solar cell efficiency. Potential challenges in contacting by
screen-printed and fired silver contacts, which might arise due to the presence of an AlOx layer on the rear side, are
overcome by implementation of a laser-enhanced contact formation step, which reduces the series resistance of such
solar cells by more than 2 Ωcm2. These modifications of our baseline process in combination with a new generation of
metallization pastes allows for the fabrication of solar cells with a champion efficiency of 23.8%. Our stable baseline
process allows for evaluation of other TOPCon-related technologies or plated contacts, as well as identifying challenges
for so-called TOPCoRE solar cells.

Keywords: TOPCon, Silicon Solar Cell, Manufacturing and Processing, Passivation

1 INTRODUCTION in a separate process step, such as e.g. POCl3 diffusion [5].

More than 30 years passed between the initial Regardless of the doping type, most TOPCon routes
presentation of the passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) require some sort of longer high-temperature treatment for
[1] and the actual large-scale manufacturing of that solar crystallization/dopant activation and dopant drive-in,
cell type. While the producers keep striving to push solar whereas some approaches have been reported to only
cell efficiencies, PERC is approaching its practical peak require a short contact firing step [10].
efficiency, however, due to physical limits of the cell In addition to shallow dopant profiles, hydrogen
architecture. management can play an important role for low
To keep up the learning rate of an increase of the recombination on the TOPCon side, and different
conversion efficiency of industrial solar cells of around approaches have been recommended, such as
0.5% absolute per year [2], a reduced time from lab to fab Al2O3/SiNx:H or SiNx:H layers, hydrogenation by
is required. After less than 10 years that the tunnel oxide illumination and heating [4] or water vapor annealing [11].
passivated contact (TOPCon) solar cell has been initially In this paper, we will show the actual status of our
published [3], industrial TOPCon (i-TOPCon) solar cells research on i-TOPCon solar cells at Fraunhofer ISE, which
have already entered large-scale manufacturing in several is conducted mainly in our pilot line laboratory PV-TEC
production lines [4,5]. [12], which in the mean-time consists of two separate labs
TOPCon technology, here used as an abbreviation for for front-end and back-end processing. All research is
high-temperature passivating contact technology in being performed using M2 sized wafers; however, we are
general, i.e., excluding heterojunction technology, has in the process of upgrading our line to keep up with
been subject to increased research by numerous companies industry needs and be able to process wafers up to G12
and research bodies over the last years. TOPCon combines size. In addition, we will also give an update on TOPCon
a very thin silicon oxide (SiOx) layer with a doped silicon Rear Emitter (TOPCoRE) solar cell technology.
layer to allow for very low surface recombination and to
minimize metal contact related recombination.
Several technologies for formation of the tunnel oxide 2 SAMPLE PREPARATION
layer have been investigated. The tunnel oxide layer is
very thin, typically in the range of 1 nm to 2 nm, to allow 2.1 Solar cells
an efficient majority carrier transport, whereas others use For solar cell fabrication, phosphorous-doped M2-
oxide layers over 2 nm thickness, which are then sized Cz-Si wafers are used. Saw damage removal and
deliberately broken by annealing at higher temperatures random pyramid formation in alkaline solution represents
[6]. In most cases, SiOx layers are being used that are the first process. Conventional tube furnace diffusion at
formed by e.g., thermal oxidation, wet chemical oxidation, atmospheric pressure using a BBr3 liquid precursor forms
gaseous oxidation, or deposited layers; but also other the boron emitter [13] with a sheet resistance of around
materials are being investigated. 110 Ω/sq. The unwanted rear emitter is removed by a
On top of the tunnel oxide layer, polysilicon layers are single side borosilicate glass (BSG) layer removal step in
deposited. For this purpose, several technologies are an inline tool and a silicon removal step, both of which
possible, among which are low pressure chemical vapor either in an inline system in acidic ambient, or
deposition (LPCVD) [5], atmospheric pressure CVD alternatively in a combination of inline system for BSG
(APCVD) [7], plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) [3,8], or removal and batch system in alkaline ambient. The
sputtering / physical vapor deposition (PVD) [9]. In targeted Si removal is 4 to 6 µm, which ensures an efficient
addition, some approaches come along with in-situ doping isolation of the wafer edge. In both cases, the front BSG
of the layer, i.e. addition of a doping precursor during needs to be kept intact. The TOPCon stack, which consists
deposition, whereas other choose to dope the layers ex-situ of a thermally grown SiO2 tunnel oxide layer and an in-
Presented at the WCPEC-8, 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 26-30 September 2022, Milan, Italy

situ doped polysilicon layer, both formed subsequently in performed after thermal activation of the layer. The
one process in a low-pressure chemical vapor deposition polysilicon layer features a rather constant dopant
(LPCVD) tube. The addition of PH3 during polysilicon concentration of 2*1020 cm-3, which allows for a low-
deposition leads to an in-situ doping of the around 80 nm ohmic contacting of this layer by screen-printed Ag pastes.
thick deposited silicon layer. Beyond the tunnel oxide layer, the carrier concentration
As the polysilicon layer is wanted solely on the rear decreases rapidly, leading to a shallow phosphorous tail in
side of the sample, the parasitically deposited layer on the the wafer itself. Please note that no correction of the
front side needs to be removed. This is being accomplished dopant profile depth has been performed, thus the tunnel
by etching in fluorine gas (F2) at atmospheric pressure oxide layer seems to be located at an etch depth of around
(atmospheric dry etching, ADE) in an inline tool, which 60 nm, instead of the actual position at around 80 nm
also removes the polysilicon at the edges of the wafers and depth. The dark saturation current density
ensures a very high shunt resistance and sufficient reverse j0,rear,SDE = 4 fA/cm2 at a planar alkaline etched surface and
bias stability [14]. Due to its high selectivity, the front j0,rear,txt = 10 fA/cm2 at an alkaline textured surface reveal
BSG layers is not etched during ADE, it acts as an etch a decent surface passivation quality of this layer. However,
stop for F2 gas. The BSG layer is removed however in the by further tailoring of the dopant profile, lower
next process step in fluoric acid (HF) solution, followed recombination values seem realistic.
by cleaning of the wafers and thermal annealing for dopant
activation in the TOPCon layer. For front side passivation,
the SiOx layer, which is formed during annealing, is
removed during wafer cleaning. Surface passivation is
being realized by deposition of a AlOx layer by atomic
layer deposition (ALD) in single slot configuration in a
tube furnace, a subsequent outgassing step in another tube
furnace, and the deposition of SiNx:H layers on front and
rear by plasma-enhance chemical vapor deposition
(PECVD). Alternatively, the AlOx/SiNy:H stack on the
front side is deposited by PECVD. Contact formation is
realized by single step screen printing of a commercial Ag
paste on the rear side, a AgAl paste on the front side and
contact firing in a conventional conveyor belt furnace,
yielding bifacial solar cells. In our industrial cell tester, we
include a laser-enhanced contact optimization (LECO)
step [15]. Its effect on IV parameters will be described
later in the paper.
The described baseline process features a high
flexibility and enables the implementation of alternative
processes, such as PECVD TOPCon deposition [16] or Figure 1: Active carrier dopant concentration Nd of a n-
plated metallization [17]. doped polysilicon layer, after thermal annealing, measured
on a planar surface. Please note that no depth correction of
2.2 Lifetime samples the etched profile to a SEM thickness measurement has
As an extension to our solar cell experiments, we been performed.
typically fabricate asymmetric lifetime samples, i.e., cells
without metallization, i.e., p+/n/n+ structure, for One possible challenge for in-situ doped polysilicon
determination of the open circuit voltage limit iVoc. For layer deposition by LPCVD is the reduced deposition rate,
assessing the recombination at the front side of the cells, when PH3 gas is added for in-situ doping of the layer. To
symmetric lifetime samples with random pyramids as well compensate this, often intrinsic layers are deposited, which
as Boron emitter, i.e., p+/n/p+ structure, and AlOx/SiNy:H are doped subsequently using POCl3 diffusion furnaces
passivation layers are used. The latter allow for extracting (labelled “ex-situ doping”). Our results show that this
the dark saturation current density j0e in high injection approach yields similar recombination values j0,rear for
from quasi steady-state photoconductance (QSSPC) planar and textured surfaces as the in-situ doping route.
measurements by the slope method. Similarly, symmetric As mentioned above, for the time being, LPCVD is our
j0,rear rear side samples, i.e., n+/n/n+ structure, enable a method of choice for i-TOPCon layer deposition. Two
better understanding of the recombination at the rear side alternative methods for silicon layer deposition are
of the sample. PECVD and PVD. Both come with the potential
advantages of strict single-sided deposition, which would
eliminate the need for the one-sided polysilicon layer
3 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS removal that is necessary for LPCVD layers [14]. While
the PECVD process will be handled in the following
3.1 LPCVD TOPCon section of this paper, there is a dedicated paper for the PVD
As mentioned above, our TOPCon layer consists of a route [18].
thermally grown tunnel oxide layer and an in-situ doped
LPCVD polysilicon layer of only 80 nm thickness, both 3.2 PECVD TOPCon
formed during one process. To evaluate the dopant profile One significant challenge with direct-plasma PECVD
of our process, both within the polysilicon layer as well as of conductive layers can be the isolation of the electrodes.
the tail in the crystalline Si wafer, electro-chemical If the isolation is exposed to the plasma, as commonly the
capacitance voltage (ECV) profiling has been used. The case for industrial direct-plasma PECVD tools, the
result of such a measurement is depicted in Figure 1, isolation will be coated by deposition of conductive
Presented at the WCPEC-8, 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 26-30 September 2022, Milan, Italy

phosphorus doped a-Si. This leads to a gradual shunting of in fact Al2O3/SiNx:H stacks on top of polysilicon layers
the isolation and thus reduced process efficiency. have been reported to allow for an improved
Consequently, the deposition rate decreases until at some hydrogenation compared to single SiNy:H layers [20]. An
point the plasma collapses. In our case, when using a 24- alternative explanation might be that the existence of a thin
wafer horizontal carrier, after approx. 3 to 4 deposition Al2O3 layer on the rear side retards the contact formation
runs the carrier must be dismantled to replace the isolators. and a thus lower j0,met would result in a higher Voc. Further
Therefore, we developed new isolators that can keep up insight into that topic is necessary to determine the
the isolation even after multiple deposition runs with underlying effect and to be able to separate between the
highly doped n-TOPCon. Figure 2 shows the determined two explanations.
deposition rate for 19 n-TOPCon process runs with the
same process boat. The deposition rate is mostly stable and
only shows some slight upwards trend, also influenced by
the uncertainty in the thickness measurement on Cz wafers
due to the rougher surface. Combined with a few
depositions (not shown here), a total layer of approx. 9 μm
thickness was deposited so far using the modified
isolators.

Figure 3: Implied open circuit voltage of asymmetric

lifetime samples (non-metallized TOPCon cell precursor)
for determination of the Voc limit, measured after firing and
illumination anneal.

Figure 2: Deposition rate of PECVD n-TOPCon for 19

measured runs. Each deposition amounts to a thickness of 3.4 Contact optimization
150 nm to 250 nm, depending on the target thickness. The At Fraunhofer ISE, we implemented a laser enhanced
total deposited thickness was approx. 9 μm. contact formation (LECO) treatment into our cell tester.
Explaining all the details of this LECO step is beyond the
3.3 Front side passivation scope of this paper, but more information can be found in
From around February 2020 until mid 2022, our boron literature [21,22]. The LECO process allows for under-
emitter passivation was based on an AlOx/SiNy:H stack, firing the contacts by reducing the required firing set
which has been deposited by PECVD. However, in mid temperature, which reduces the damage induced by the
2022, we were able to setup a process for high throughput metal contact and thus e.g. j0,met at the front side [23]. In
thermal, temporal ALD in a tube furnace batch system, and this case, LECO leads to a significant improvement in IV
we compared this ALD process to our PECVD reference parameters. For our TOPCon solar cells, LECO leads to an
process. By putting one wafer in each slot of the ALD increase of the conversion efficiency of up to 4% absolute
process boat, we chose to deposit Al2O3 on both sides of (see Figure 4), by considerably reducing the average series
the samples of this group, which is achieved easily due to resistance of the solar cells from 2.81 Ωcm2 to 0.46 Ωcm2,
nature of double-sided deposition during the process. The which results in an increased fill factor. This LECO
results reveal that the ALD process reduced j0e to treatment is especially important in case of Al2O3 layers
15 fA/cm2, compared to j0e = 24 fA/cm2 for the PECVD on the rear side, since these layers hinder contact
passivation approach. This is in agreement with values formation for non-adapted Ag pastes, resulting in
shown by others [4,19] for similar dopant profiles, which extremely low fill factors for such cells. In such cases,
yields an increase of the median implied Voc of asymmetric LECO can demonstrate its full potential. The overall
cell precursors of around 4 mV, see Figure 3. champion solar cell treated with LECO and measured at
Nevertheless, although the results already make hope for a our industrial cell tester is listed in Table 1.
positive transfer towards solar cells, it is mandatory to also
fabricate such solar cells, as the possible existence of an Table 1: IV parameters extracted from measurements in
Al2O3 layer on the rear side might negatively affect the an industrial cell tester, after LECO, using a
contact formation between Ag paste and poly-Si layer. GridTouchTM unit with 30 wires for current and 5 wires
However, the metallization process (see next section) for voltage, and measured versus a black and electrically
showed to be tolerant to the presence of the Al2O3 layer non-conductive background.
and the solar cell conversion efficiency increased by 0.5% Poly η jsc Voc FF
absolute for the ALD route, because of a 6 mV higher Voc Thickness (%) (mA/cm²) (mV) (%)
and an increase in fill factor FF by 0.6% absolute. The 80 nm 23.5 40.7 706 81.7
different increase of iVoc and Voc hints towards another
positive effect of the Al2O3 deposition on the rear side, and
Presented at the WCPEC-8, 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 26-30 September 2022, Milan, Italy

24
6 82 6 possible too deep contact at the rear emitter side would
23 80 lead to a direct shunting of the device.
78
22
76 So far, in few experiments, we used high quality, high-

FF (%)
h (%)

74
21
6 72
ohmic Ga-doped Cz-Si wafers for fabrication of such
20 70 6
TOPCoRE solar cells. For reasons of stability, we
68
19
66 increased the thickness of the polysilicon layer to 160 nm,
18 64 however first tests with 80 nm of n-doped polysilicon were
successful, too, and showed almost an identical conversion
40.8 707
6 efficiency, with differences in the range of 0.1%. All other
706
40.75
6 6
705 6
processes from the above-described process i-TOPCon
j sc (mA/cm )

sequence have been left unchanged. The measurements at

2

40.7
Voc (mV)

704
40.65
703 Fraunhofer ISE CalLab PV Cells show an efficiency of
40.6
702 23.2% for such p-type TOPCoRE devices, which forms a
1 before LECO
40.55 701
2 after LECO
promising starting point for further progress on such cells.
40.5 700 More information on this cell structure can be found in the
Figure 4: Impact of LECO processing on typical IV data, respective paper [24].
measured at an industrial cell tester.
3.6 Plating
The combination of local laser ablation of passivation
Table 2 shows the IV parameters of another industrial layers and a plated stack of nickel (≈0.5µm thickness) /
M2 sized i-TOPCon solar cell from another run, which has copper (5 to 10 µm) / silver (<0.5 µm) [25] offers the
been subject to a calibrated measurement at Fraunhofer possibility to reduce more than 90% in silver consumption
ISE CalLab PV Cells, using a golden, reflective chuck and for industrial TOPCon solar cells. Furthermore, recent
30 current wires. The solar cell features Voc = 706 mV, publications from Fraunhofer ISE [26] could demonstrate
jsc = 41.3 mA/cm², and FF = 81.6%, which results in a that low-damage laser contact opening for plating enables
conversion efficiency η = 23.8 %. As described above, the to further reduce the poly-Si thickness of the TOPCon
polysilicon thickness on the rear side is only 80 nm, as contact down to 60 nm and by that further reduce
confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. The front processing cost of TOPCon solar cells.
side passivation consists of an ALD deposited Al2O3 layer Figure 5 shows the Voc of industrial TOPCon
in combination with a PECVD SiNx layer. Single step precursors metallized with i) either both sides plated
screen printing and single step firing form the metal Ni/Cu/Ag or ii) screen-printed silver (no LECO) contacts
contacts, followed by LECO treatment. on the poly-Si rear side, and screen-printed AgAl paste on
the front side. The plated solar cells feature an increased
Table 2: IV parameters from our champion M2 solar cell Voc of about 5 mV compared to the screen-printed
with area 244.5 cm² and a polysilicon thickness of 80 nm reference. Photoluminescence imaging (PL) of test fields
(n-doped, in-situ). The calibrated measurement has been on i-TOPCon solar cell precursors with and without laser
performed at Fraunhofer ISE CalLab on a golden contact openings (LCO) on a sample with 60 nm poly-Si
reflective chuck with full area rear side contacting, using thickness demonstrate that the application of UV
30 wires for current and 5 wires for voltage, neglecting the picosecond laser ablation yields a marginal laser-induced
grid resistance. damage with an average iVoc decrease of only 1 mV. These
Status η jsc Voc FF results show the potential to decrease the poly-Si thickness
(%) (mA/cm²) (mV) (%) by introducing laser defined plated contacts for i-TOPCon
As processed 23.8 41.3 706 81.6 solar cells. Furthermore, recent developments at
After MgF2 24.0 41.6 708 81.6 Fraunhofer ISE [6] show that the contact resistivity ρc
below 1 mΩcm² allows to decrease the LCO width down
3.5 TOPCon vs. TOPCoRE to 5 µm, which leads to plated contact widths of about
So far, in all experiments described above, n-type Si 12 µm only.
wafers have been used. However, for reasons of cost and
dopant segregation over the ingot, p-type Cz-Si wafers are
still of relevance. In addition, Ga-doped Si-wafers feature
a high minority carrier lifetime and are favorable to boron-
doped Si wafers with respect to potential iron
contamination. This makes them interesting for use in so-
called TOPCoRE solar cells, i.e., a TOPCon solar cell,
where instead of a n-type Si wafer, a p-type Si wafer is
used. This transition puts the emitter on the rear side of the
cell, in this case then a polysilicon passivated contact
emitter, and the boron diffused front side becomes a front
surface field, which due to the high conductivity of the
wafer itself does not need to contribute to lateral
conductivity and which can be thus optimized with respect
to passivation quality and contact formation only. On the
one hand, this cell structure is very sensitive to front side
recombination and carrier diffusion length, as
photogenerated electrons need to reach the cells rear side, Figure 5: Measured Voc of plated and screen printed
and on the other hand to carrier recombination at the rear TOPCon solar cells with variation of poly-Si thickness on
side metal contacts due to presence of the pn junction. A the TOPCon rear side (from [26]).
Presented at the WCPEC-8, 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 26-30 September 2022, Milan, Italy

The recent progress in reducing the impact of laser- Bartzsch, D. Wissen, F. Kersten, A. Mette, S. Peters,
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Acknowledgements Conference and Exhibition (2020).
The authors want to thank all colleagues at Fraunhofer ISE [16]F. Feldmann, T. Fellmeth, B. Steinhauser, H. Nagel,
for the excellent atmosphere and the support of TOPCon D. Ourinson, S. Mack, E. Lohmüller, J. Polzin, J.
activities in general, by means of processing, simulation, Benick, A. Richter, A. Moldovan, M. Bivour, F.
discussions or financing. Clement, J. Rentsch, M. Hermle, and S. W. Glunz,
This work was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Proceedings 36th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy
Economic Affairs and Climate Action within the research Conference and Exhibition (2019), p. 304.
projects “TOPConCluster” (contract no. 03EE1065A), [17]S. Kluska, B. Grübel, G. Cimiotti, C. Schmiga, H.
“BUSSARD” (contract no. 03EE1071A), “TALER” Berg, A. Beinert, I. Kubitza, P. Müller, and T. Voss,
(contract no. 03EE1021B), “SpuTOPiA” (contract no. EPJ Photovolt. 12 (2021), 10.
03EE1068C), and “StroKoFo” (contract no. 03EE1055B). [18]V. Linss, E. Schneiderlöchner, T. Dietsch, J.
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